Dr Vincent Oghenerobo Imieje is a pharmacist, lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria. He obtained his PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the 2019/2020 academic session. His research focus is isolation, characterisation, and biological screening of Nigerian medicinal plants with activities against protozoal diseases (malaria, trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis), cancer, inflammatory diseases, and recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease through in silico methods.
He has been teaching pharmaceutical chemistry to both undergraduate and postgraduate students since 2016 in the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Benin. He is widely travelled and conducted research at Prof Peter Langers' laboratory at the famous institute of Chemistry, University of Rostock, Germany, 2013. He was a visiting scholar at the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR), University of Mississippi, United States of America, (2015-2016), under Prof Iklas Khan. At the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR), he learned modern isolation techniques and the characterisation of bioactive compounds against protozoal diseases. He was exposed to different instrumental methods (1D & 2D NMR), FTIR, UV, and HRESIMS.
He has acted as a supervisor to many undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Benin, where he has been the Faculty Examination Officer since 2018.
He has published over 20 research articles in peer-reviewed journals; the most recent is "Comprehensive In Silico screening of the Antiviral Potentialities of a New Humulene Glucoside from Asteriscus hierochunticus against SARS-CoV-2', in the Journal of Chemistry. He has also presented his research in oral and poster presentations at different international conferences in Europe (Czech, Italy, Germany) and the United States of America (ICSB-ASP, 2016 and ASP-2019).
Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher in Prof Abiodun Falodun's Natural Product Research Group (NPRG) at the University of Benin. The group won the National Research Fund (NRF) grant in 2020 to conduct advanced research on the Identification and Development of Potential drugs from Nigerian Medicinal Plants against Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) (NRF/SETI/HSW/00796). The Tertiary Education Trust Fund fully funds the National Research Fund (NRF) grant.
Dr Imieje acts as a reviewer for many high impact journals. He is a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Nigeria Association of Pharmacists in Academia, and American Society of Pharmacognosy.
